Phillips Library

Phillips Library

The Peabody Essex Museum's Phillips Library is on of the New England's major research libraries.

The earliest formal recognition of a library was with the East India Marine Society, founded in 1799.

In 1867, the EIMS became the Peabody Academy of Science. Among its formal governing principles was the establishment of “a working library”.

By 1915, it became apparent that the PAS had matured from its roots as an academy devoted to science into a museum with broader collecting interests and cultural commitments, thus prompting a name change to the Peabody Museum of Salem. A new corporate seal was adopted depicting the museum's three areas of interest - ethnology, natural history, and maritime history. It was soon recognized that expanded library space was greatly needed and the Stephen Phillips Library was constructed in Plummer Hall (1857) with funds from Stephen Phillips; the reading room was named for the Saltonstall family.

On a parallel track, in 1821, the Essex Historical Society was established “to collect and preserve all authentic memorials relating to the civil history of the county of Essex, and the eminent men who have been inhabitants of it from its first settlement, as well as all facts relating to its natural history and topography.” This was followed in 1836 with the formation of a related but different organization, the Essex County Natural History Society. ECNHS operated in modest obscurity until 1848 when it merged with the Essex Historical Society; the new entity took the name “Essex Institute,” combining both museum and library collections. Over the next 20 years, the library collection grew to approximately 50,000 bound volumes.

In 1992, the Peabody Museum merged with the Essex Institute, combining their respective libraries to form what we now know as the Phillips Library.

The collections of the Phillips Library consist of manuscripts, books, pamphlets, maps, charts, photographs and documents created for personal, business, legal, artistic, didactic and scholarly use.

In 2011, the library's collection and staff had moved to an industrial building in Peabody, with plans to move back in a few years. This temporary home has been closed since Sept. 2017. The plan now is to move the collection permanently to a facility in Rowley. There has been some controversy about this move.

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